by Jeff Wood
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Copyright © 2015 by Jeff Wood
All rights reserved
ISBN: 978-1-937512-41-5
Library of Congress Control Number available upon request.
Cover: Cone of a pine, from Elements of Geology, The British Library
Page 3: The Great Serpent Mound, from Ancient Monuments of the
Mississippi Valley, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1848
Page 98-99: Nelson Minar
Author photograph: Linda Rosa Saal
Design and layout: Two Dollar Radio
No portion of this book may be copied or reproduced, with the exception of quotes used in critical essays and reviews, without the written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s lively imagination. Any resemblance to real events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Printed in Canada
for Cooper
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE THE GREENING AN ARIA OF TREES
OHIO WINTER 2000
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
PROLOGUE
THE GREENING AN ARIA OF TREES
A stand of trees runs along the edge of a farm field. The spring trees and dense undergrowth form a panoramic still-life of green foliage, a familiar yet primal scene. A fracturing cradle of birds in the light. Slight hidden movements and chatter. Leaves and branches swaying, insects swarming the song, and just the greening, trees, alive.
***
A new suburban front door opens and a young boy exits the house in jeans and a jacket. He hops down the front steps, crosses the driveway in front of the garage and rounds the corner, heading up the narrow alley of lawn that separates his house from the neighboring house.
Beyond the odd space between houses, he stands at the edge of his backyard and faces a farm field that stretches out beyond. He looks out across the field and at the green stand of trees on the far side.
Rows and rows of low spring corn lie between him and the forest. An old lone tree rises from the center of the field, like a grandfather.
The boy’s face.
Watching those trees, the fresh eyes of a seven-year-old boy. He looks over his shoulder at the houses and then he takes off. He sprints across the field, following a row of young corn toward the tree line. The brand new neighborhood of modest suburban homes sprawls along the edge of the field behind him.
***
Maple, black ash, honeysuckle, and dogwood. A typical Midwestern forest. The trees are quiet, full of space, and intermittent bird-song.
The boy moves slowly through the undergrowth, alert, listening, and exploring. He runs his hands along the patterns of bark as he makes his way among the trees.
Treetops soar above him, spanning a canopy of filtered, emerald light. A woodpecker’s tapping clarifies the cool air inside the woven cathedral.
The boy finds an enormous tree blown over in a windstorm. He stands before the massive root system, uprooted and exposed, marveling at the horrendous spectacle unearthed. He pulls himself up onto the horizontal trunk and eases along it as though traversing the keel of a capsized ship. He climbs through the branches of the toppled crown and emerges out of the top of the tree. Beyond it, he encounters a colony of wild grape vines. He holds on tight and in great running leaps, launches himself into Tarzan-swings across the forest floor. He takes up a fallen branch, as heavy as he can handle, to brandish like a broadsword. He swings it with all his might, smashing the branch against standing tree trunks, chunks and splinters sent flying through the undergrowth.
Deeper into the forest, the boy scrambles over marvelous collections of moss-covered boulders, rocky outcrops, and serpentine tree roots snarling over stones.
A small stream trickles into a gorge. Following it, he discovers a fantastic grotto many times his size. A thin glistening waterfall drops from a high ledge to a shallow pool on the cavern floor. He is a small figure, alone and entranced in this child’s primeval wonderland—a seven-year-old boy, far from home, far from time.
***
The boy descends the stream to a river. A broad river running through the trees. A row of milky, pealing sycamores on either side. Clear water flowing over polished stones and smooth, flat shale. High above the river, a colony of herons’ nests are hung in the sycamores, a prehistoric enclave against the high blue sky.
He wades in shallow pools, negotiating the current over river rocks and from the safety of the bank he watches schools of minnows in sunlight plying over the ripples. He looks up from the water and is startled to see someone watching him from the opposite bank. A strange figure standing there, another child his size, but nearly naked and completely covered in pale mud paint from head to toe.
They stare at each other from opposite sides of the river. The boy cautiously stands and waves hello. The other boy waves back… a twin mirror image of himself, but covered in ghostly aboriginal paint. Then the primitive stranger takes off, disappearing into the trees.
***
The boy sits at the kitchen table eating his breakfast alone, his spoon clanking on the bowl as he shovels down his cereal.
THE BOY
Can I go now?
MOM
Are you finished?
THE BOY
Yes.
MOM
All right, but you stick close by.
He flees the table, leaving his seat empty, his bowl and his spoon.
He explodes through the front door and follows his path toward the back of the house, sprinting down the alleyway between the two houses. He crosses the backyard and launches out across the cornfield.
The boy wastes no time returning to the stream. He moves steadily through the trees, sliding down a slope and descending to the water. When he gets to the river’s edge he scans the opposite bank, looking for any sign of his strange new friend.
He sits down on a rock to wait. He waits and he waits. He releases broad sycamore leaves into the sweep of the current and watches puffy white clouds move across the sky above the trees. But the changing light brings a chill to the air and he huddles up on his rock, shivering. He scans the opposite bank of the river one last time but there is no sign of anyone. He heads back up the slope and disappears into the forest.
The boy moves through the trees once more, retracing his steps, heading home.
Emerging from the valley at the top of the rise, he suddenly hears voices and stops in his tracks. Adult voices. He hides behind a tree. When he peeks out from behind the trunk he sees them: Two men carrying some gear and pushing through the undergrowth.
Sue is holding a can of spray paint and tagging trees with orange paint as he moves along. He’s running his mouth at Gunner, the man in front of him.
The boy watches them from behind his tree.
SUE
…we’ve got good jobs. We get to work outside, not in some sterile office. That’s who we are. We’re outside dogs. And I think it’s kind of exciting. We’re out here on the frontier, cutting trail. We’re drawing the map and I think that
’s kind of neat—
Gunner stops abruptly and Sue crashes into him.
SUE
Whoa! Sorry…
Gunner holds up his hand to silence Sue.
SUE
What’s the matter?
GUNNER
Quiet.
SUE
(whispering)
What? What is it?
GUNNER
Do you hear something?
The boy retreats behind his tree, listening.
SUE
No.
GUNNER
Do you smell something?
SUE
Like what?
GUNNER
Some funny smell.
SUE
I don’t think so.
GUNNER
Well do you or don’t you?
SUE
Well, I don’t know! What kind of smell is it?
GUNNER
Something burning… It smells like something’s burning.
Gunner moves on and Sue follows on after him.
The boy waits until they’ve gone.
He steps out from behind his tree and is startled to see another man standing nearby, watching him. The boy freezes and the man watches him quietly, with a friendly expression. Another surveyor, but a younger man, Jonah holds a long surveyor’s rod in one hand like a futuristic forest staff. He takes a step forward, gently, but the boy retreats a step, scuffling in the leaves.
Jonah reaches a hand out, slowly, like he’s trying to befriend an animal. The boy watches him. Then Jonah’s radio suddenly squelches, obnoxiously shattering the quiet—and the boy takes off, disappearing into the trees.
***
The boy sits at the kitchen table again, eating breakfast alone. He clanks his spoon against the cereal bowl.
He stops eating and scratches at his ear. He shakes his head and scratches at it some more. He takes another mouthful of cereal and then digs his finger into his ear, leaning over to the side almost all the way out of his chair.
MOM
What’s going on here?
THE BOY
Something’s in my ear.
Her hands on his head, and the boy’s ear being examined by her fingers…
MOM
Hold still, let me see. Oh—darn it. Leave it alone. I’ll be right back. Don’t touch it.
His mother releases him and leaves him for a moment.
Just the boy’s ear.
MOM
All right, hold still now. Don’t move.
She steadies his head. Tweezers enter his ear and dig around inside his earlobe. He whines in a bit of pain.
MOM
Eeew. Okay. Got it.
And she extracts a tick from his ear: a small deer tick, and still alive, its 8 legs cranking helplessly in the grip of the tweezers.
***
The boy exits the house, closes the door, descends the steps, crosses the driveway, rounds the corner, and stops. Whatever he sees in the narrow passage between the two houses has stopped him in his tracks. He moves forward slowly, disappearing down the grass alleyway.
The boy stands in the grass at the end of his house, where the backyard would have led out into the field. Instead, there is a wall of beige vinyl siding, the back of another house.
He looks to his left and to his right. The field is gone. In its place is a long row of more houses. He looks up at the monolithic wall of vinyl siding towering above him where the view to another world used to be.
A lightly humming whir, air being moved through a ventilation system.
OHIO
WINTER 2000
A bare light bulb hangs from the ceiling of a self-storage unit. The bulb illuminates the small garage space of corrugated metal walls and a concrete floor. A large, obsolete word processor with a yellow-lit screen sits on a card table. A folding metal chair sits at the table.
Jonah lies on a mattress on the floor, his back propped up in the corner. He’s in his 30s, medium build and fit, Midwestern decent looks. He wears brown winter construction coveralls, unzipped and peeled to the waist. The left sleeve of his thermal-underwear shirt is pushed up to the elbow and he holds this arm with his right hand as if he is wounded. On his left wrist he wears a watch. It is ticking. He shivers a bit, feverish, but he lies mostly motionless as if he can’t move.
The quirky, tumbling music of an ice cream truck is faintly audible outside. He listens to it, breathing shallow, his breath steaming in the frigid air. He strains to check his ticking watch. Then he speaks to someone.
JONAH
Could you turn the light off?
A dark figure stands at the threshold to the garage space, silhouetted and ringed by angelic halos from the vapor lights in the alley behind him. He moves forward and pulls the chain on the light bulb and Jonah disappears into darkness.
The harsh sound of the metal garage door rolling down and slamming to the ground.
***
A momentary flash of a large tree on fire. The tree is burning ferociously in a dark winter field, roaring in the night, nothing but black around the burning tree and a ring of fiery light illuminating the frozen ground.
***
A vast, empty interior of smooth concrete and metallic light. An event hall after hours. On the far side of the hangar-sized room a steel door screeches open, throwing a long trapezoid of daylight out onto the floor. A figure enters and the door slams shut. Radiation Man walks across the concrete to the center of the space. He is an anonymous man wearing a radiation protection suit. He carries a hand-held Geiger counter.
He turns on the Geiger counter and takes a reading. The instrument chirps away steadily like a cockroach on speed. He turns off the instrument, walks back across the floor, and exits the room. The steel door slams shut behind him.
II
Ashen skies smolder on the black horizon. Rising light bleeds over skeletal treetops. Power lines cut across the countryside. Power transfer stations sit squatted in the weeds. Mutant cell phone towers rising out of nowhere.
Several morning deer venture out into the open. A buck scans the area, nostrils steaming in the cold air, a full rack of antlers balanced and poised.
Across the field, a row of suburban houses sprawls along the line between earth and civilization. A man’s voice cuts across the landscape from an unseen walkie-talkie: the radio chatter of a land survey crew relaying abstract practical jargon intercut with static and squelch.
GUNNER
(radio voice-over)
All right. Good. Add ten. Good! Add five. And just a hair… Good. Shooting.
Brand new suburban houses. Thousands of new homes, everywhere for everyone. Condominiums, duplexes, and house after house, lined up like tombstones across the countryside.
GUNNER
(radio voice-over)
Got the shot. All right. And… Cut two! Good! Let’s shoot it again. All right, good. Shooting—
The white spray of a fountain aerating some half-frozen man-made pond. Wild winter geese camped out like refugees and wandering in the yellow, out-of-season grass.
GUNNER
(radio voice-over)
And— Got the shot!
Identical patterns of vinyl siding, milky windows, empty streets, and square lawns. The strange spaces between houses, strips of grass.
The new world is a brand new ghost town, and a cemetery.
***
An automated suburban garage door opens, rolling up smoothly. The boy is revealed standing in the empty garage. He’s outfitted for the cold in a blue winter snowsuit. But his cheeks are blazed with orange war paint. Orange and blue feathers rise from an “Indian” headband. At his side he carries a large orange tackle box.
He runs out of the garage, descends the driveway, and runs down the street, struggling with the tackle box that is almost too big for him to carry.
The little “Indian” boy wanders through the neighborhood. The streets are deserted, windows dark. He reaches a cul-de-sac and does a U-
turn, walking a large circle around the perimeter of the dead-end. He sits down on the curb, fidgeting, alone, and gazing absently into the cul-de-sac.
Then he gets an idea. He walks into the center of the street and opens the tackle box. The box is filled with large sticks of colored street chalk. The boy chooses a color and draws on the pavement.
His stick of chalk goes around and around, scraping loudly against the street. He looks up and sees another child, a cowgirl, also about 7, snowsuit, holster, cowgirl hat.
COWGIRL
What are you doing?
THE BOY
Nothing… Making circles.
COWGIRL
I can do that too.
She grabs a stick of chalk out of his box and gets down on the ground to help him with his drawing. Around and around, the sound of chalk scraping circles on the pavement.
***
An outdoor labyrinth of corrugated garage doors. Rows and rows of storage units.
A single storage unit identical to all the rest. The door opens, rolling up with a manual clatter.
Jonah emerges from the garage. He wears his thermal construction coveralls, work boots, a winter hat, and a bright orange traffic safety vest.
He pulls the door down and locks it with a rotary dial combination pad lock. His breath steams in the morning cold. He pulls on his winter work gloves and walks down the long row of storage units.
***
A middle-aged man sits on the edge of his bed. Pale, balding, and paunchy, Robert stares down at invisible stuff strewn across the industrial wall-to-wall carpeting. Only one side of the bed has been slept in.
The sound of a loud river rushes through the mundane suburban bedroom. The confusion of muddled dreams, sleep, and watery, groggy awakening. Robert pulls on his bathrobe and moves downstairs, leaving the invisible river rushing through an empty bedroom.
In the kitchen, he pours himself some coffee. Lite music and incoherent news voices interplay softly on the kitchen radio. He sits down at the kitchen table and sips at his coffee.
A ceiling fan rotates overhead, around and around, swooping loudly like the memory of a wartime helicopter in slow-mo.
Robert cradles the warm mug in his hands on his lap, looking down into the coffee.
